


Lie With Me

by Halley



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 04:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5813404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halley/pseuds/Halley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liquid light pools in the nooks and crannies of the Old North Church. </p><p>Deacon doesn't know he's vouching for the enemy.</p><p>Nora doesn't know she is the enemy.</p><p>It starts out gold, their slow, inevitable descent into darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie With Me

"Would you risk your life for your fellow man?"

Well, Nate made a career of risking his life for his fellow man. Now he's a frozen corpse in Vault 111. Nora is going to find their son alone. 

Nate was military, but Nora is not, so Nora is careful. She asks the Railroad for help because their style suits her. Like them, she plays the game of shadows. Why battle, when she can charm the hands off a deathclaw?

Two-hundred years ago Nora had been a lawyer, and wordplay had been her job. Today it is her life, and the life of her missing son. It may have been two-hundred years, but Nora can still make the words flow like water.

So when Desdemona asks her 'the only question that matters' the lie comes easy.

"I risk my life for people everyday," Nora lies, "Makes no difference to me," she says. That's true. Nora won't be risking her life for anyone, human or synth.

The lie is for her son, for herself, and maybe for the man they call Deacon, too. The virtual stranger risked -- his reputation? His career? His people? And for what? To vouch for her? Nora isn't a fighter like her husband. She's a lawyer and a mother, and the Wasteland made both obsolete. This man, this Deacon, had no reason to vouch for her.

But Nora has no intention to learn his motives. She'll steal Shaun away from the Institute and leave the Railroad to its merry way. She'll go eke out an existence in the distant the Wasteland with her son. Maybe they'll start a farm. Maybe one day she'll return to the city. Maybe she'll stumble onto another stranger with those trademark sunglasses. Maybe she'll finally get a chance to tell him "thank you," or even "I'm sorry."

"Hope you didn't mind the reception," he cuts into her thoughts. As if he should be the one apologizing. "When you tango with the Institute you got to be careful."

Nora laughs.

It is absurd -- the fact that he's apologizing to her, but mostly the pictures his words generate. Deacon, holding a rose between his teeth, twirling across the dance floor, and dipping his partner from the Institute, Kellogg. 

Nora's husband is dead; her son is missing, and their murderer-kidnapper is still at large. But the apocalypse has ended, and the world is still here, still alive with people like him. She doesn't know his real name -- she's never even seen his eyes -- but Nora is a woman of words and his make her laugh for the first time in two-hundred years.

The little white lie relegates itself to the back of her mind; after all, Nora meant well. But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. 

As Nora steps into the Boston night, the North Church bells begin to toll.


End file.
